AT&T Announced Sponsored Data

Leon Hitchens

5 years ago

Today at CES 2014 AT&T Developer Conference, the carrier announced “Sponsored Data,” which sounds like something that would never work. It’s best described as a 1-800 number where you’re not charge for the phone call, and in this case you won’t be charged for the data. The data from a sponsored app would not be charged to the customer but directly to the company. This means any sponsored data would not go towards your data cap or bill.

This means customers will get more content, but will any company pay for sponsor data? This sounds something like a monopoly would do, but it will be interesting if this grows government services are included. This could be carrier free and help nonprofits, governments, and others to reach everyone no matter how much data they have. Of course these organizations won’t use this and more likely Twitter or other companies will take advantage of this.